how ’bout we opt-out of sloppy, manufactured-trend pieces, eh?

The March/April issue of Columbia Journalism Review has an amazing article about “the opt-out” myth (thanks to Feministe for steering me toward the online article, even though I have a damn hard-copy of the magazine sitting on my table collecting dust — why do I even bother with non-Internet magazine subscriptions?).

E.J. Graff points out that the “opt-out revolution” — the idea that well-educated women are suddenly choosing to flee the work-force in droves in order to become full-time mommies, and the subject of inches and inches of newspaper editorial coverage — is, well … silly. And not really a “choice,” per se. And not really a “revolution” either. And, most importantly, lacking in one of those markers we generally expect journalism to live up to — you know, the truth.

As Joan C. Williams notes in her meticulously researched report, ‘Opt Out’ or Pushed Out? How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict, released in October 2006 by the University of California Hastings Center for WorkLife Law, where she is the director, The New York Times alone has highlighted this “trend” repeatedly over the last fifty years: in 1953 (“Case History of an Ex-Working Mother”), 1961 (“Career Women Discover Satisfactions in the Home”), 1980 (“Many Young Women Now Say They’d Pick Family Over Career”), 1998 (“The Stay-At-Home Mother”), and 2005 (“Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood”). And yet during the same years, the U.S. has seen steady upticks in the numbers and percentages of women, including mothers, who work for wages.

Graff points out that, as with any good urban legend, there are truths contained in the narrative.

The problem is that the moms-go-home storyline presents all those issues as personal rather than public—and does so in misleading ways. The stories’ statistics are selective, their anecdotes about upper-echelon white women are misleading, and their “counterintuitive” narrative line parrots conventional ideas about gender roles. Thus they erase most American families’ real experiences and the resulting social policy needs from view.

I think what’s interesting about the fact that these types of stories seem to only reflect the realities of certain sects of upper-class, educated women is that it really backs up a neo-marxist interpretation of the mass media — that because media is owned by the “ownership” or “elite” classes, it disproportionately reflects the interests of these classes. But because it presents this viewpoint as the sort of normative societal viewpoint, people are sort of lulled into accepting this as the true reality, and are thus disinclined to act in ways that might change their circumstances. Put like this, it sounds sort of extreme. But here, try it like this:

Here’s why that matters: if journalism repeatedly frames the wrong problem, then the folks who make public policy may very well deliver the wrong solution. If women are happily choosing to stay home with their babies, that’s a private decision. But it’s a public policy issue if most women (and men) need to work to support their families, and if the economy needs women’s skills to remain competitive. It’s a public policy issue if schools, jobs, and other American institutions are structured in ways that make it frustratingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, for parents to manage both their jobs and family responsibilities.

… such articles focus excessively on a tiny proportion of American women—white, highly educated, in well-paying professional/managerial jobs. … But because journalists and editors increasingly come from and socialize in this class, their anecdotes loom large in our personal rearview mirrors—and in our most influential publications. Such women are chastised for working by Caitlin Flanagan (a woman rich enough to stay home and have a nanny!) in The Atlantic, and for lacking ambition by Linda Hirshman in The American Prospect. But such “my-friends-and-me” coverage is an irresponsible approach to major issues being wrestled with by every American family and employer.

Read the rest of the article. It’s good, and it covers — point by point — all the major flaws with this opt-out storyline in much more detail.

P.S. The article mentions this book, which I am very excited about reading, due out in April: Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women, by Caryl Rivers

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I think one reason well-educated mothers leave is the cost of quality childcare and the pathetic amount of leave we are given after our “diability,” I mean, childbirth. We as a country need to appreciate the need for all women to have support as they move into motherhood. If we want to stay on top, we need to support the next generation, as well as all the parents who are caring for them.